Chris Neal feels Vale need to change and quickly if they are to come out of their recent form.

Chris Neal, who has recently come back into the side after seeing himself become second choice in the first couple of games behind young keeper Sam Johnson, believes general play by Vale has been good, but it is small mistakes that are costing them big.

However, he wants to stress that everyone in the team are training hard to put it right and they are hoping this hard work comes to fruition against high-flying Bristol City at Vale Park tonight, 7.45 kick-off.

Talking ahead of the match, Neal said: “We haven’t started the season how we wanted to start it and that’s quickly got to change.

“Five defeats in a row, if you look at that on paper it looks pretty bad, but if you look at our general play I think during the games it’s been reasonably good.

“It’s just silly mistakes that we’re making at the back that are costing us goals, so if we can tighten up there and keep scoring goals, then we’re going to start picking up points and getting wins.

“If you look at the goals we’ve conceded it’s been a lot of set pieces, but people think we don’t work on stuff in training, we do and we have been every day.

“I think it’s that little bit of concentration when we go into matches, but we’re rallying around together, especially as a back five, making sure we make it hard for teams.

“If you were to look at our attacking play during the games at Crewe and Peterborough for example, on another day we could have scored three or four.

“It’s just that the chances aren’t falling for us at the moment, but if we keep being positive it will do soon.”

Neal has stated that moral is still good throughout the squad as they all come together to get back on track.

He also admitted that it’s a good thing that they have a chance straight away to get back on track tonight against the Robins. Although they know it would be a tough match whatever form Vale are on.

He explained: “We’ve not got our heads down, there’s no point sulking as a squad because we can’t change the results that have just happened

“We need to look forward to the game tonight and hopefully we can get some points.

“I think it’s a good thing we’ve got a match straight away; it’s going to help us. We didn’t get the result we wanted on Saturday.

“However, we’ve got a chance to put it right against a team that are flying high and hopefully we can stop them in their tracks.

“It’d be an upset if we beat them the way they’ve been playing and the goals they’ve been scoring, but hopefully if we can nullify that and nick a couple of goals at the other end.